June 7 is the unofficial National VCR Day, a day designated to recognize a technology that was cutting-edge in its time. VCRs gained popularity when the home videocassette format was introduced, making the technology available to everyone. It’s estimated that billions of videotapes are still in existence, holding movies and memories, but VCRs are no longer the favored choice.

This doesn’t surprise most people, because streaming video is a familiar concept today. However, those same people might find it shocking that many businesses continue to use tape backup for their important data and significant files.

Tape backup for company information is going the way of the VCR, albeit more slowly. The reason the switch hasn’t been faster may be because not everyone understands the vulnerability of tape or realizes what options are available or preferable.

Vulnerabilities

• Tapes can be damaged by the environment, such as fire, water, dust, extremes in temperature, or exposure to magnetic fields.
• The question of where to store the tape to protect it from damage can be problematic.
• It can take many tapes to perform a comprehensive backup.
• Storage on tape is time-consuming, and it takes a long time to back up or to restore your data. If a lot of information must be backed up, there’s a chance you will never have a truly current version, as the information will be outdated when the backup is finally complete, and definitely outdated by the time it is ultimately restored.
• It’s challenging to locate specific information on a tape backup system.
• Tape backups might not meet compliance requirements.
• Security depends, in part, on who has access to the tape, because it is mobile and can be removed from a safe place to a location at which it could be at risk.
• The more it’s used, the more fragile it becomes, and the danger is that it might wear out just when you need it most.

The Alternative

While different options are available, more and more companies are looking to cloud storage as their primary backup strategy. Not all storage is the same, so make sure you select a knowledgeable, proven, reliable cloud storage company. Once you have the right partner, you can rest assured that your cloud storage is secure, fast, easy to restore, private, compliant and affordable.

Your data is available to you from any location, and backing up is simple and automatic.

It’s true that once upon a time we enjoyed our home movies on a VCR, but that time is long past, replaced by technology that is faster, more dependable and better.

The time for tape storage is also past. If your company is using an outdated tape backup method for your important business files, it’s time to step into the future of reliable cloud storage.

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